RIM Playbook to hit Indian shores!

All roads lead to India. Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom and now RIM Playbook have all made their India launches. Research in Motion is planning to start selling its new tablet RIM Playbook in India from May. This shouldn’t be a big news considering that India has its fair share of tablets. But all the launches are delayed launches and are cascaded with their North American launches. However the lag time is coming down as we move along. Is it India’s economic clout or the increasing appetite for new devices by Indians? Whatever it is, India should be part of any new product roadmap.

RIM Playbook is yet another alternative to the iOS and Android tablets. Android tablets are dime a dozen and iPad is the only real tablet out there. With Playbook entering Indian segment, things get a little interesting.

Playbook is speculated to be launched with a price of Rs. 24999. It packs in a gigahertz processor, 1 GB RAM, 7-inch screen and RIM OS. RIM had also made a smart move to use the java backbone of Android and allow it to run on RIM devices. If this works out as it should, it gives RIM as a tremendous edge and probably best of both worlds. RIM has around 25000 apps in its market place and with the Android touch it can potentially offer 200,000 more apps to its consumers.

iGyaan reports that Playbook might have limited tethering options to start with. This isn’t very encouraging because anything that has to sell in India has to be open. Apple is an exception though.